By the time I finished the coffee I had argued myself back into condition and felt hungry, so I ordered breakfast, which helped a lot more. It’s surprising how many psychological problems can be traced to an empty gut. I went out into King Street and looked up and down. There was a new car dealer a little way down the street and a used car lot up the street. The big place was owned by Matterson and, since I didn’t want to put any money in his pocket, I strolled up to the used car lot.
I looked at the junk that was lying round and a thin-faced man popped out of a hut at the front of the lot. ‘Anything I can do for you? Got some good stuff here going cheap. Best autos in town.’
‘I’m looking for a small truck—four by four.’
‘Like a jeep?’
‘If you have one.’
He shook his head. ‘Got a Land-Rover, though. How about that? Better than the jeep, I think.’
‘Where is it?’
He pointed to a tired piece of scrap iron on four wheels. ‘There she is. You won’t do better than that. British made, you know. Better than any Detroit iron.’
‘Don’t push so hard, bud,’ I said, and walked over to have a look at the Land-Rover. Someone had used it hard; the paint had worn and there were dents in every conceivable place and in some which weren’t so conceivable. The interior of the cab was well worn, too, and looked pretty rough, but a Land-Rover isn’t a luxury limousine in the first place. The tyres were good.
I stepped back. ‘Can I look under the hood?’
‘Sure.’ He released the catch and lifted the hood, chattering as he did so. ‘This is a good buy—only had one owner.’
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘A little old lady who only used it to go to church every Sunday.’
‘Don’t get me wrong,’ he said. ‘I really mean that. It belonged to Jim Cooper; he runs a truck farm just outside town. He turned this in and got himself a new one. But this crate still runs real good.’
I looked at the engine and halfway began to believe him. It was spotless and there were no telltale oil drips. But what the transmission was like was another story, so I said, ‘Can I take her out for half an hour?’
‘Help yourself,’ he said. ‘You’ll find the key in the lock.’
I wheeled out the Land-Rover and headed north to where I knew I could find a bad road. It was also in the direction of where McDougall had his cabin and I thought I might as well check on its exact position in case I had to find it in a hurry. I found a nice corrugated stretch of road and accelerated to find out what the springing was like. It seemed to be all right, although there were some nasty sounds coming from the battered body that I didn’t care for.
I found the turn-off for Mac’s place without much trouble and found a really bad road, a hummocky trail rising and dipping with the fall of the land and with several bad patches of mud. Here I experimented with the variety of gears which constitute the charm of the Land-Rover, and I also tried out the front-wheel drive and found everything in reasonable condition.
Mac’s cabin was small but beautifully positioned on a rise overlooking a stretch of woodland, and just behind it was a stream which looked as though it might hold some good fish. I spent five minutes looking the place over, then I headed back to town to do a deal with the friendly small-town car dealer.
We dickered a bit and then finally settled on a price—a shade more than I had intended to pay and a shade less than he had intended to get, which made both of us moderately unhappy. I paid him the money and decided I might as well start here as anywhere else. ‘Do you remember a man called Trinavant—John Trinavant?’
He scratched his head. ‘Say, yes; of course I remember old John. Funny—I haven’t thought of him in years. Was he a friend of yours?’
‘Can’t say I remember meeting him,’ I said. ‘Did he live round here?’
‘Live round here? Mister, he was Fort Farrell!’
‘I thought that was Matterson.’
A gobbet of spit just missed my foot. ‘Matterson!’ The tone of voice told me what he thought of that.
I said, ‘I hear he was killed in an auto accident. Is that right?’
‘Yeah. And his son and wife both. On the road to Edmonton. Must be over ten years ago now. A mighty nasty thing, that was.’
‘What kind of a car was he driving?’
He looked at me with speculative eyes. ‘You got any special interest, Mister…?’
‘The name’s Boyd,’ I said. ‘Bob Boyd. Someone asked me to check if I was in these parts. It seems as though Trinavant did my friend a good turn years ago—there was some money involved, I believe.’
‘I can believe that of John Trinavant; he was a pretty good guy. My name’s Summerskill.’
I grinned at him. ‘Glad to meet you, Mr Summerskill. Did Trinavant buy his car from you?’
Summerskill laughed uproariously, ‘Hell, no! I don’t have that class. Old John was a Cadillac man, and, anyway, he owned his own place up the road a piece—Fort Farrell Motors. It belongs to Matterson now.’
I looked up the street. ‘Must make pretty tough competition for you,’ I said.
‘Some,’ he agreed. ‘But I do all right, Mr Boyd.’
‘Come to think of it,’ I said, ‘I’ve seen nothing else but the name of Matterson since I’ve been here, Mr Summerskill. The Matterson Bank, Matterson House Hotel—and I believe there’s a Matterson Corporation. What did he do—buy out Trinavant?’
Summerskill grimaced. ‘What you’ve seen is the tip of the iceberg. Matterson pretty near owns this part of the country—logging operations, sawmills, pulp mills. He’s bigger than old John ever was—in power, that is. But not in heart, no, sir! No one had a bigger heart than John Trinavant. As for Matterson buying out Mr Trinavant—well, I could tell you a thing or two about that. But it’s an old story and better forgotten.’
‘Looks as though I came too late.’
‘Yeah, you tell your friend he was ten years too late. If he owed old John any dough it’s too late to pay it back now.’
‘I don’t think it was the money,’ I said. ‘My friend just wanted to make contact again.’
Summerskill nodded. ‘Yeah, it’s like that. I was born in Hazelton and I went away just as soon as I could, but of course I had a hankering to go back, so I did after five years. And you know what? The first two guys I went to see had died—the first two guys on my list. Things change around a place, they certainly do.’
I stuck my hand out. ‘Well, it’s been nice doing business with you, Mr Summerskill.’
‘Any time, Mr Boyd.’ We shook hands. ‘You want any spares, you come right back.’
I climbed up into the cab and leaned out of the window. ‘If the engine drops out of this heap in the next couple of days you’ll be seeing me soon enough,’ I promised, softening it with a grin.
He laughed and waved me away, and as I drove down King Street I thought that the memory of John Trinavant had been replanted in at least one mind. With a bit of luck Summerskill would mention it to his wife and a couple of his buddies. You know what? Me and a stranger had a chat about a guy I haven’t thought of in years. You must remember old John Trinavant. Remember when he started the Recorder and everyone thought it would go bust?
So it would go, I hoped; and the ripples would go wider and wider, especially if I dropped some more rocks into this stagnant pool. Sooner or later the ripples would reach the ferocious old pike who ruled the pool, and I hoped he would take action.
I pulled up in front of the Forestry Service office and went inside. The Forestry Officer was called Tanner and he was cordial if not hopeful. I told him I was passing through and that I was interested in tree-farm licences.
‘Not a chance, Mr Boyd,’ he said. ‘The Matterson Corporation has licensed nearly all the Crown lands round here. There are one or two pockets left but they’re so small you could spit across them.’
I scratched my jaw. ‘Perhaps if I could see a map?’ I suggested.
‘Sure,’ he said promp
tly, and quickly produced a largescale map of the area which he spread on his desk. ‘There you have it in a nutshell.’ His finger traced a wide sweep. ‘All this is the holding of the Matterson Corporation—privately owned. And this here…’ a much larger sweep this time…‘is Crown land franchised to the Matterson Corporation under tree-farm licences.’
I looked closely at the map, which made very interesting viewing. To divert Tanner from what I was really after, I said, ‘What about public sustained-yield units?’ Those were areas where the Forestry Service did all the work but let the felling franchises out on short-term contracts.
‘None of those round here, Mr Boyd. We’re too far off the beaten track for the Forestry Service to run tree farms. Most of the sustained-yield units are down south.’
‘It certainly looks like a closed shop,’ I commented. ‘Any truth in what I hear that the Matterson Corporation got into trouble for over-felling?’
Tanner looked at me warily. Over-felling is the most heinous crime in the Forestry Service book. ‘I couldn’t say about that,’ he said stiffly.
I wondered if he had been bought by Matterson, but on second thoughts I didn’t think so. Buying a forestry officer in British Columbia would be like buying a Cardinal of the Church—just about impossible. Fifty per cent of the province’s revenue comes from timber and conservation is the great god. To come out against conservation is like coming out against motherhood.
I checked the map again. ‘Thanks for your trouble, Mr Tanner,’ I said. ‘You’ve been very obliging, but there seems precious little for me here. Any of these tree-farm licences likely to fall vacant?’
‘Not for a long time, Mr Boyd. The Matterson Corporation has put in a lot of capital in sawmills and pulp mills; they insisted on long-term licences.’
I nodded. ‘Very wise; I’d want the same. Well, thanks again, Mr Tanner.’
I left him without satisfying the wondering look in his eye and drove down to the depot where I picked up a lot of geological gear that I had sent in advance. The fat depot superintendent helped me load the Land-Rover, and said, ‘You figuring on staying?’
‘For a while,’ I said. ‘Just for a while. You can call me Trinavant’s last hope.’
A salacious leer spread over his face. ‘Clare Trinavant? You want to watch out for Howard Matterson.’
I suppressed the desire to push his face in. ‘Not Clare Trinavant,’ I said gently. ‘John Trinavant. And I can take care of Howard Matterson, too, if he interferes. Have you got a phone anywhere?’
He still wore the surprised look as he said abstractedly, ‘In the hall.’
I strode past him and he came pattering after me. ‘Hey, mister, John Trinavant is dead—he’s been dead for over ten years.’
I stopped. ‘I know he’s dead. That’s the point. Don’t you get it? Now beat it. This is a private telephone call.’
He turned away with a baffled shrug and a muttered, ‘Aw, nuts!’ I smiled because another rock had been thrown into the pool and another set of ripples started to affright the hungry pike.
Did you hear about that crazy man that just blew into town? Said he was Trinavant’s last hope. I thought he meant Clare; you know, Clare Trinavant, but he said he meant John. Can you beat that, with old John been dead for ten—no, twelve—years! This guy was here a couple of years back and had words with Howard Matterson about Clare Trinavant. How do I know? Because Maggie Hope told me—she was Howard’s secretary then. I warned her not to shoot her mouth off but it was no good. Howard fired her. But this guy is crazy, for sure. I mean, John Trinavant—he’s dead.
I phoned the Recorder office and got hold of Mac. ‘Do you know of a good lawyer?’ I asked.
‘I might,’ he said cautiously. ‘What do you want a lawyer for?’
‘I want a lawyer who isn’t afraid of bucking Matterson. I know the land laws but I want a lawyer who can give legal punch to what I know—dress the stuff up in that scary legal language.’
‘There’s old Fraser—he’s retired now but he’s a friend of mine and he doesn’t like Matterson one little bit. Would he do?’
‘He’ll do,’ I said. ‘As long as he’s not too old to go into court if necessary.’
‘Oh, Fraser can go into court. What are you up to, Bob?’
I grinned. ‘I’m going prospecting on Matterson land. My guess is that Matterson isn’t going to like it.’
There was a muffled noise in the receiver and I put the phone down gently.
FIVE
They had driven a new road up to the Kinoxi Valley to take care of the stream of construction trucks carrying materials for the dam and the logging trucks bringing the lumber from the valley. It was a rough road, not too well graded and being chewed to pieces by the heavy traffic. Where there was mud they had corduroyed it with ten-inch logs which made your teeth rattle, and in places they had cut through the soil down to bedrock to provide a firmer footing.
No one took any notice of me; I was merely another man driving a battered truck which looked as though it had a right to be there. The road led to the bottom of the low escarpment where they were building the generator house, a squat structure rafted on a sea of churned-up mud in which a gang of construction workers sweated and swore. Up the escarpment, by the side of the brown-running stream, ran the flume, a 36-inch pipe to bring the water to the powerhouse. The road took off on the other side of the stream and clung to a hillside, zig-zagging its way to the top and towards the dam.
I was surprised to see how far they had got with the construction. McDougall was right: the Kinoxi Valley would be under water in three months. I pulled off the road and watched them pour concrete for a few minutes and noted the smooth way in which the sand and gravel trucks were handled. This was an efficient operation.
A big logging truck passed, going downhill like a juggernaut, and the Land-Rover rocked on its springs in the wind of its passing. There was not likely to be another close behind it so I pressed on up the road, past the dam and into the valley where I ran the Land-Rover off the road and behind trees where it was not likely to be seen. Then I went on foot away from the road, taking a slanting, climbing course across the hillside until I was high enough to get a good view of the valley.
It was a scene of desolation. The quiet valley I had known, where the fish jumped in the stream and the deer browsed in the woodlands, had been destroyed. In its place was a wilderness of jagged stumps and a tangle of felled brushwood on a ground of mud criss-crossed by the track marks of the trucks. Away up the valley, near the little lake, there was still the green of trees, but I could hear, even at that distance, the harsh scream of the power saws biting into living wood.
British Columbia is very conservation-minded where its lumber resources are concerned. Out of every dollar earned in the province fifty cents comes ultimately from the logging industry and the Government wants that happy state of affairs to continue. So the Forestry Service polices the woodlands and controls the cutting. There are an awful lot of men who get a kick out of murdering a big tree and there are a few money-greedy bastards who are willing to let them get their kicks because of the number of board-feet of manufactured lumber that the tree will provide at the sawmill. So the Forestry Service has its work cut out.
The idea is that the amount of lumber cut, expressed in cubic feet, should not exceed the natural annual growth. Now, when you start talking in cubic footage of lumber in British Columbia you sound like an astronomer calculating the distance in miles to a pretty far star. The forest lands cover 220,000 square miles, say, four times the size of England, and the annual growth is estimated at two and a half billion cubic feet. So the annual cutting rate is limited to a little over two billion cubic feet and the result is an increasing, instead of a wasting, asset.
That is why I looked down into the Kinoxi Valley with shocked eyes. Normally, in a logging operation, only the mature trees are cut; but here they were taking everything. I suppose it was logical. If you are going to flood a valley there is no
point in leaving the trees, but this sight offended me. This was a rape of the land, something that had not been since the bad old days before the First World War when the conservation laws came in.
I looked up the valley and did a quick calculation. The new Matterson Lake was going to cover twenty square miles, of which five square miles in the north belonged to Clare Trinavant. That meant that Matterson was cutting a solid fifteen square miles of trees and the Forestry Service was letting him do it because of the dam. That amount of lumber was enough to pay for the dam with a hell of a lot left over. It seemed to me that Matterson was a pretty sharp guy, but he was too damned ruthless for my taste.
I went back to the Land-Rover and drove back down the road and past the dam. Halfway down the escarpment I stopped and again drove off the road but I didn’t bother to hide the vehicle this time. I wanted to be seen. I rummaged about in my gear and found what I wanted—something to confound the ignorant—and then, in full view of the road I started to act in a suspicious manner. I took my hammer and chipped at rocks, I dug at the ground like a gopher scrabbling a hole, I looked at pebbles through a magnifying-glass and I paced out large areas gazing intently at the dial of an instrument which I held in my hand.
It was nearly an hour before I was noticed. A jeep rocketed up the hill and slammed to a stop and two men got out. As they walked over I slipped off my wrist-watch and palmed it, then stooped to pick up a large rock. Booted feet crunched nearer and I turned. The bigger of the men said, ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Prospecting,’ I said nonchalantly.
‘The hell you are! This is private land.’
‘I don’t think so,’ I said.
The other man pointed. ‘What’s that you got there?’
‘This? It’s a geiger counter.’ I moved it near to the rock I held—and nearer to the luminous dial of my watch—and it buzzed like a demented mosquito. ‘Interesting,’ I said.
The big man leaned forward. ‘What is it?’
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